The Cole Protocol
by ApacheTheWriter
Summary: Short Story I wrote a while ago. One shot. Drop a review.


Vipa 'Ersamee jogged down the hallway of the human ship, his large, armored feet clunking on the rubberized deck. Readying his plasma rifle, he whirled around the corner. Still, no human filth showed their faces. He growled, flexing his mandibles, and called up a captured schematic of the human frigate. He cursed them for designing their ships in this manner- boxy and angular, perfect for cowardly ambushes.

Straight ahead was their provisions deck. The pressure doors were sealed. He gave them an experimental kick, before unsheathing his energy sword and cleaving a deep gash into the 8 centimeter thick door in one deft move. He skillfully manipulated the blade and carved out a rough square from the door. With a grunt, he kicked it out. It dropped with a thud to the other side. He prepared to climb through, but as he bent down to do so, there was a sudden flash of human gunfire and he heard the sound of bullets impacting the space beside his head.

Roaring, he primed a plasma grenade and threw it through the hole in the door. He heard screaming, then the telltale sound of the grenade exploding. Smoke billowed out from the hole. The fire suppression system activated, quelling the flames the detonation had caused. He stepped through the hole, plasma rifle at the ready. Three blackened human corpses lay amongst the debris that used to be tables. He snorted with disgust before continuing through the door on the other side of the room. He swept this corridor, and proceeded forward, stepping over fallen wires. More human bodies lay here. They were victims of the destruction his ship, Dauntless Creed, had wrought upon the lowly human vessel. He observed a sign on the wall, running it through the language translators. It indicated the human ship's command center to be just ahead and to the left.

Confidently, he strode up to the bulky doors to the command center and gave them an expirimental pounding with a closed fist.

He growled a few words into the communicator, receiving an instant reply. He narrowed his eyes, keeping his weapon trained on the hallway.

Minutes passed. Eventually, Vipa's scanners detected movement. He growled and readied his weapon.

Two other Sangheili came out of their active camouflage. Vipa lowered his weapon. They barked orders, and three squat Ungoy rounded the corner, struggling to heft a heavy-duty plasma torch.

Vipa strode towards the other Sangheili. "Brothers."

One spoke. "Excellent work, Vipa. The shipmaster will be pleased."

Vipa snorted. "Killing a few humans is no achievement. Let us recover the navigation data from this ship."

The other Elite nodded. It sharply barked an order at the Ungoy. The three small creatures hefted the torch, and began cutting through the door. The three Sangheili readied their weapons. The Ungoy set a charge and scuttled away.

The doors blew off their hinges. Immediately, a hail of gunfire flew from within. The Ungoy screamed as bullets tore through them, rupturing their methane tanks. Vipa and the others fired back. "Move in." Ordered Vipa. All three ran in, Vipa's sword cleaving through a human marine. The man dropped without a sound. Vipa's shields flashed as a burst of gunfire caught him in the torso. He brought up his plasma rifle and fired a burst into the offending marine. The superheated plasma melted through the humans primitive body armor in seconds, leaving the man to drop to the deck, screaming as it burned through him next.

Vipa turned at the sound of a submachine gun firing- but no bullets flew at him. One of the human officers was pumping a computer console full of bullets, glass and plastic flying everywhere.

Vipa shot this man as well.

A few human officers remained on the bridge. As the Sangheili covered the others, Vipa strode up to one, seized him by the throat, and slammed him against the bulkhead.

"Your navigational data, worm. Where is it?"

The man had a defiant gleam in his eyes. "Gone, squid-head. You want it? Tough shit."

The human would not tell him. Vipa could somewhat admire the human's steadfast unwillingness to allow the covenant to discover more of their filthy worlds. Without a word, Vipa violently closed his fist, breaking the man's neck. He flung the corpse to the side.

"If any of you cowards would like a death with no suffering, then i suggest you reveal the location of your pathetic worlds before i am forced to extract it from you."

The remaining three humans shifted uneasily. One made a sudden lunge for a fallen assault rifle. He grabbed it and let off an extended burst of gunfire that deflected harmlessly off of Vipa's shields. Vipa decapitated the whelp without a second thought.

As this commotion was going on, no one noticed the human officer slowly typing commands into a keyboard behind him. Just as the head of his fallen crewmate hit the deck, the officer pressed enter.

The officer stepped forward.

"Alright, you split lip freak. You want to know where my homeworld is?"

Vipa and the other Sangheili stared at him with interest.

"Well, it's deep inside your Sister's-"

The frigate's fuel reserves flooded into it's Deuterium Fusion reactor chamber. The overload of reactive chemicals caused an explosion that was sufficient to blow the human frigate into scraps of Titanium battleplate and girder.

Everyone on board was obliterated.

The losing battle for the human colony still raged below the rapidly expanding debris field. The human planet would eventually fall. But the Covenant would have to work to find every other one.

The end.


End file.
